Fernando Alonso's recent races have set off alarm bells among the fans and Aston Martin is beginning to worry. We analyze the causes that have caused the Silverstone team to lose steam.
It seems that Fernando Alonso's long-awaited victory number 33 in Formula 1 will have to wait. In fact, there are those who predict that this will never come because the Aston Martin soufflé has collapsed and will not rise again.
The truth is that Fernando Alonso already warned months ago, when in the middle of a streak of podiums he stated that the sixth and seventh places would arrive since the competitors would improve and there would be less favorable circuits for the Aston Martin AMR23.
And it is precisely in this situation that Fernando Alonso and Aston Martin find themselves at the moment, after having added a single podium in four races and seeing how Mercedes and McLaren surpassed them at Silverstone, and even Alpine and Williams became a serious threat.
But, is this circumstantial situation or is there something else that indicates that the difficulties seen in Spain, Austria, and Great Britain are just the beginning of a deeper crisis?
The reasons that explain the Aston Martin crisis
Aston Martin blindsided everyone at the start of the season with their lightning-fast AMR23, which put the team in a totally unexpected situation.
The car designed by Dan Fallows and his team began the year clearly the second best and even threatened to challenge Red Bull for the first position.
This meant that, for a while, some of the car's weaknesses were overlooked, which over time has placed it in a vulnerable situation compared to its rivals.
Grill par
But before we focus on Aston Martin and its car, it is important to put the championship in context.
Yes, it is true that Red Bull dominates with an iron fist and has taken all the victories up for grabs so far, but that is not incompatible with the fact that this year's grid is more even than ever.
If we look at the statistics for the 2023 season, we will see that the average lap times in qualifying play out this scenario very well.
Red Bull has added all the pole positions of the season except one, so it is only 21 thousandths of the ideal time. Ferrari is the second team in this section, with Aston Martin and Mercedes below separated by a few thousandths.
In addition, a total of six teams are less than a second from the ideal pole and the entire grid comes together in 1.6 seconds. This means that each detail or circumstance has the ability to shuffle the grid.
Max Verstappen himself admits that it is "very confusing" to point out his main rival, "because every race weekend there is someone else behind. I think it's because it's so evenly matched that if you put your car in a slightly better window, it works on a particular track."
“Honestly, I don't know what's going to happen in Hungary, who will be fastest or second fastest. It is a completely different track ”, expands the Dutchman.
Weakness in classification
We have started talking about the performance of each other in qualifying and that is precisely the main weakness of Aston Martin with its AMR23.
In today's Formula 1, dominated by aerodynamics and with tires prone to one-stop strategies, qualifying on the front two rows of the grid is vital to a good result on Sunday.
Aston Martin suffers in this section and the average positions of its drivers are a good example. Fernando Alonso's consistency allows him to average fifth place, while Lance Stroll goes to a worrying 9.8, on the verge of being left out of Q3 (in fact, he has been left out of it four times).
This problem has grown even more in recent races. Fernando Alonso was on the front row of the grid in Miami and Monaco but was ninth in Spain, seventh in Austria, and, again, ninth in Great Britain.
Low tire degradation
If you don't qualify above, you need a much higher race pace than your rivals to be able to compensate and climb positions.
But, we insist again, that is difficult to see in current Formula 1 with Pirelli as the sole supplier of tires. In Bahrain, Fernando Alonso spent the first lap in seventh position, but the degradation allowed him to overcome all his rivals to join Red Bull on the podium.
This is something that has not been repeated in the rest of the circuits, so a compromising grid position and an obligatory strategy of a pit stop have prevented the AMR23 from bringing out one of its main strengths.
Silverstone has been the latest example of this. The British circuit has been, seasons ago, a very demanding layout with the tires, even seeing the race decided with blowouts in the last few laps.
Things are different now for two reasons: the ground effect and a new Pirelli build.
On the one hand, the ground effect of current cars has made fast corners now easier for single-seaters, which makes issues such as top speed more important.
Silverstone is now a bad circuit for cars with low aerodynamic efficiency, as the fast corners with ground effect are less critical.
This weekend, a surprising Alexander Albon in his Williams has become a great example of this, fighting with Fernando Alonso with a car that generates much less downforce but flies on the straights.
On the other hand, Pirelli debuted a new tire structure this weekend. While the compounds are the same, the casing is now stiffer and stronger, significantly reducing lateral stress degradation in the fast corners at Silverstone.
To this, we had to add the low temperatures on Sunday, with the rain even threatening. The result was that George Russell was able to cover 28 laps on the soft tire (the longest stint on the medium was 33 laps and the hard was 32).
In fact, one of the keys to the small margin with which Max Verstappen won this race was precisely that. Red Bull is brilliant at tire management, like Aston Martin, and Max Verstappen even struggled to get the front tires up to the right temperature. This is a circuit that demands a lot of energy from them in the fast corners.
The main beneficiary of this was McLaren, which had hitherto suffered particularly from tire degradation. In fact, Lando Norris was able to warm up the tires quickly to hold off Lewis Hamilton after the restart of the race after the Safety Car, despite the hard tires and the Mercedes soft.
Mario Isola himself, Pirelli's top sports manager, openly recognized this. “This is something we have tried to achieve. The McLaren, which we know is quite hard on tires, was able to do the tough job well. The Mercedes was good on soft."
Fast corners
We have already talked a bit about the fast corners, but these deserve more attention in the case of the Aston Martin AMR23 since they have revealed themselves as a weak point for the car led by Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll.
Generally, cars that are capable of generating a lot of downforce are exceptional in fast corners. But, as we have advanced a few lines above, the ground effect has changed this statement a bit.
The AMR23 suffers from a clear imbalance between load and resistance to advance (downforce vs. drag). This means that, although it supports a very high cornering speed, it also loses it on the straights as it reaches a lower top speed.
If, in addition, the fast corners are less decisive due to the ground effect, then said strength loses significantly and the top speed gains it. That is, Aston Martin loses.
At Silverstone, this becomes more apparent as it has a lot of fast corners. On the other hand, in circuits with a predominance of medium and low-speed curves, the AMR23 should recover ground.
The evolution of the AMR23
As much as we analyze the circumstances of each circuit or the qualities of each single-seater, the reality is that in current Formula 1 the latter evolves at a high rate during the season.
This means that neither the Silverstone Aston Martin AMR23 is the same as in Bahrain, nor are the other competitors. Fernando Alonso's car received a major update in Canada, but in virtually every race it has incorporated minor modifications
The same can be said of the Mercedes, which completely changed the concept of its side pods in Monaco, the Ferrari, the Alpine, the McLaren, and the Williams. This means that, after a few races, the order of the grid begins to fluctuate, not only based on the characteristics of each weekend but also on the evolution of the cars.
There is no doubt that with the latest changes to their cars, Mercedes has picked up speed, Ferrari has reduced the inconsistency in their race pace and McLaren has made a huge leap. It is also true that Aston Martin has failed to improve to the same extent.
And this, in a scenario of extreme equality in which a tenth can send you from third to ninth position on the grid, or even leave you out of it in Q2, becomes vital for the final result.
Fernando Alonso's 33rd victory
The conclusion that we can draw from all this is that Aston Martin is going to have to improve in several areas if it wants to continue aspiring to runner-up or, at least, not finish in fourth position in a World Cup that began in an extremely exciting way.
There is no doubt that Fernando Alonso's long-awaited victory number 33 now seems distant since it is no longer enough for Red Bull to fail, but more teams have to do so and, in addition, the circumstances must be given in a favorable circuit for Aston Martin.
The car that was initially versatile and capable of being fast in any circumstance has been losing steam and is already overly dependent on the circuit, degradation, and its rivals. With these wickers, it is difficult to imagine a victory this year.
Mike Krack, director of Aston Martin, acknowledges that his team has “long days ahead, but it is something we have to do if we want to improve where we are now. And I am confident that we will move forward."
The Luxembourg engineer points out that Aston Martin must analyze if its low moment of form “depends on the track or if it is more genuine in terms of the car's performance. As a team, it is a challenge to see the reasons why we are not competitive, how we develop the car from here on out, and how we get to Hungary and Belgium."
Time will tell if Aston Martin has what it takes to resist the advance of teams as powerful as Mercedes, Ferrari, and now also McLaren
Of course, let's not lose sight of another detail that Fernando Alonso pointed out this weekend at Silverstone and that could explain some things: "We dedicated Free Practice 1 on Friday to the 2024 car, so you can see where the whole team is headed".
Aston Martin is clear that its real objective is to fight for the World Cup and this year that will not happen. Have you decided to put aside 2023 to focus on next season? Time will tell but, in any case, it is a fact that the evolution of Canada has not been as effective as in other teams.
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